Why Is This ‘Normal’ Picture of Guy Fieri Without Bleached Hair and Goatee Going Viral?

Food Network host and human loaded nachos plate Guy Fieri is in the news today thanks to a photo circulating showing the host without his signature bleach-blond spiky hair and gnarly goatee.

The nation’s leading content creators were quick to jump on the Fieri Kickin’ Chipotle gravy train, playing this photo for all the pageviews it was worth. The headline over at Buzzfeed reads “Guy Fieri Without His Trademark Hair Will Forever Change You.” And in case that wasn’t hysterical enough, the subhead reads: “This is not an exaggeration. This is not ‘clickbait.’ This is what people deserve and need to see.”

Right now, Guy Fieri is the number one trending topic on Facebook, and other sites have fallen in love with the normcore look of Fieri without his well-known towheaded hairdo. But the sneaky fact that is buried way down at the bottom of Buzzfeed’s article, and outright omitted in many others, is that this photo is 100% fake.

Back in June, a Twitter user who goes by Wrong Opinion Guy did a quick photoshop job of Guy Fieri with the haircut of pop singer Robin Thicke. It’s the kind of thing people do on Twitter to amuse themselves all the time. Nothing fancy, just joking around with friends. But now it’s a sensation, and sites (including ours) will rake in the ad revenue based on people clicking to see (what they assume) are real picture of Guy Fieri with a regular dude haircut, while the original content creator sees nothing. Kind of a messed up situation, but that’s the state of online publishing.

As long as you’re interested in photoshops involving Guy Fieri’s hair, why not check out WOG’s Buzzfeed post of celebrities with Guy Fieri’s hair, like Jennifer Lawrence?

Meanwhile, the Internet remains eerily silent on the real Guy Fieri issue that could soon affect all of us: Guy Fieri’s tongue is a brain-eating parasite that will kill us all.